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 | | Robert Nozick (Contemporary Philosophy in Focus) by David Schmidtz (Editor) ISBN-10: 9780521782265 ISBN-10: 0-521-78226-0 ISBN-13: 9780521782265 ISBN-13: 978-0-521-78226-5 Hardcover 2002-03-07 Cambridge University Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description This introductory volume is devoted to Robert Nozick, one of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the current age. Nozick's famous book, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), presents the classic defense of the libertarian view that only a minimal state is just. He has made significant contributions to such areas as rational choice theory, ethics, epistemology and philosophy of mind. In addition to philosophers, the book will be of particular interest to professionals and students in political science, law, economics, sociology and psychology. David Schmidtz taught at Yale University and Bowling Green State University before joining the University of Arizona, where he is Professor of Philosophy and joint Professor of Economics. His previous books include Environmental Ethics (Oxford), Social Welfare and Individual Responsibility (Cambridge, 1998) and Rational Choice and Moral Agency (Princeton). He lives in Tucson, Arizona. | ||
Reviews | ||
Honest and Sincere Thoughts Rather than Analytical Theory; but only modest profundity; re-rated to only 3 stars You need not know Nozick's work to get something out of this book. The keywords are Honest and Sincere Musings on issues as Nozick proclaimed of himself. Most of the various authors in this anthology do the same: give genuine and sincere thoughts rather than formal analytic theory. Whether or not they are doing so to follow Nozick's example or whether or not they are musing on Nozick or his ideas or instead musing on their own ideas, these authors mostly come up with insights free of artifice. In redoing my review here (July 2006) I decided the book should only have 3 stars though. Put into context of more profound readings I have been doing, 3 stars is where this book ranks. Still, you can't go wrong buying this book if you're in the mood for a more relaxed, but still philosophical, bout of reading. For more profundity go elsewhere. If you like, use the Amazon feature to see all my reviews. | ||
a pretty random collection of essays The first thing you should realize about this book is that it is not a systematic introduction or explanation of Nozick - it is merely a collection of about 8 articles interpreting and criticizing fairly narrow areas of Nozick's thought. The introduction or first chatper (don't remember which) provides a pretty good five page summary of Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia but the rest of the book is pretty worthless, pretty much like the journal articles you might expect to find if you searched for Nozick articles on JSTOR or EbscoHost or another online journal program. If you can read the first chapter in a bookstore go for it, otherwise you are probably wasting your time and money. | ||